National Republican., 1887-05-02

with pollution and shame? Shall we mire In
ippurity and chase fantastic will-o'-the-
might might walk the he blos@inRs gsrdens arden SS Of
God? Q no! For the sake OF our
present and everlasting, welfare we must
Standing, as we do, chin deep in fictitious
literature, the first question that many of the
young people are asking me is, Shall we read
pure good chfstan' eleVetins @ 's' to the % heart art
and ennobling to tho life. But / have still
further to say that ! believe that ninety-nine
out Of the one hundred novels in this day are
pure work of fiction Is history and poetry COM
bined. 1t is history OF things around us with
the licenses and the assumed names ofpoetry:
owes to such fictitious writer's as Hawthorne
and Mckenzie, and Landon, and Hunt, and
Arthur, and Marion Harland. and others,
Of high life We're never better exposed than by
Miss Edgeworth. The memories Of the past
were never more faithfully embalmed than
novels are healthfully redolent with the
breath of the seaweed, and the air of the
American forest. Charles Kingsley has smitten
many to appreciate the poetry Of sound health,
strong muscles, and fresh air. Thackeray did
agrand work In caricaturing the pretenders 70
his own monument in his books, which are an
everlasting plea for the poor, and the auathema
OF injustice. Now. say, books like these, read
at right tines and read ia right
and purifying; but alas for the loathsome aud
impure literature that has come upon this
country in the shape Of novels. like a freshet
common sense! They are coming, from
Of he most pubsnins
newspapers. They lie on your center table to
curse your children and blast with their in.
fernal fires generations unborn; You find
bncn kp In hn nf mi tn
the trunk of the young man, in tho steamboat
cabin, on the table OF the hotel reception room.
You see light in your child's, room late at
sGs hGRg "a book Yo ooE wss Gs
book; 4. is q bad book. where did YOU get
ways those abroad who would like. to
loan your son or daughter bad
book. Everywhere, everywhere an unclean
ten thousand mmora souls ii ne and BID you
this morning wake up to the magnitude of the
theme shall take all the worlds literature
histories faithful and incorrect legends beauti;
ful and monstrous, all tracts all chronicles, all
epilogues, all family, city, state, and natl ,nal
PILE them Up in pyramid OF
II some grand, glorious, iulallible, unmstak
able Christian principles. God help me TO
speak with reference to my last account, aud
charge you. In the first place, to stand alOof
nom all books that give false pictures OF hu.
man life. Life Is neither tragedy nor
farce. Men arc not all either knaves or heroes.
Women are neither angels nor iurics. And
yet. II you depended upon mucn Of the litera-
!ure Of the day, you would get the idea that
something practical, is a ftfnl and fantastic
and extTavagant thing. Hoy poorly prepared
ere ihat hat, young man nan snan and woman 1.ni
wsdIng through brilliant passages descriptive
OF magnificent knhvery aud wickedness, The
man viii be looking all day long for his hero
inc, in the tin shop, by the forge, n the
find her; and he will be dissatisfied. A man
whoglves himself up to the ndiscriminate
reading OF novels VIII be nerveles9, inane. and
store, nor the shop. nor the field A woman
whogiyes herself up to thu inii'crimlnat9
reading Of novels win be united, for the
There She is, hair disheveled, counte1au1e
vacant, cheeks pale, hands troubling,
bursting into e tears some %ida sh
lover; in the daytime, when she ouglt to b.
busy, staring by the half hour az nothing,
biting her ilDgor nails into the quick. The
carpet that was plain before will he palmer
after having wandered through romance al
night long In tesselated halls of castles. And
your industrious companion Will be more un.
attractive than ever now that you have walked
in the romance through parks with plnmed
prlncesses or louuged In the arbor with the
polished desperate. Oh, these c0ndrmed novel
readers Ihey hre ul,tteu LOT tuls ne, Whlch
is a tremendous discipline They know not
how to go through the furnaces of trial through
which they must pass aud they are untitled
for world where everything wes.g gain we
achieve by hard, longconllnutng, aHbeShaus'
tive work.
Again Abstain from all those books which,
while they have same good thlngiabluI them,
have also m admlNture OF evil. You have
read books that had 70 elements ia them
the good and bad Which stuck 10 You? fhe
bad The heart OF most people is Ike u sieve,
which lets the small part!elel OF gold fall
through, but keeps the great cinders. once in